


It Had Always Been There

by kylosbrickhousebody



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Babies, Babies, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Family Fluff, Father-Son Relationship, Fatherhood, Fluff, Gen, Kylo Ren Redemption, M/M, Magical Pregnancy, Mother-Son Relationship, Motherhood, Multi, Other, Post-Canon, Pregnancy, Redemption, Reylo babies, Romantic Fluff, Unintentional Redemption
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-27
Updated: 2018-02-27
Packaged: 2019-03-24 15:44:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,007
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13814322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylosbrickhousebody/pseuds/kylosbrickhousebody
Summary: Kylo Ren/Ben Solo welcomes his child.





	It Had Always Been There

**Author's Note:**

> One-shot for feels.
> 
> For related moodboards, see: https://www.pinterest.com/Kylosbrickhousebody/
> 
> For related Reylo/Kylo playlists, see: https://open.spotify.com/user/2lsivtn9heztapydvsgoky2x6?si=g2ndlw4vTUCQFqnK4iQtlA  
> or  
> spotify:user:2lsivtn9heztapydvsgoky2x6
> 
> Tumblr: https://kylosbrickhousebody.tumblr.com/

Step aside, now; go stand in the corner. They’re going to need some room.

If you looked over, you’d see a young woman clutching the bar of the medbay bed. Her dark hair was made to appear darker than it really was from sweat, pooled heavily on her brow. The knuckles of her hand were cracked and white from straining. You might think that someone in so much pain would long since have gone white. Instead, her face was flushed with color—color from the hard pushing she had done a moment ago, before you’d arrived.

You’ve probably noticed by now that she’s pregnant—that is, if you weren’t distracted enough by the frantic din all around you. Yes, you’re about to witness the delivery of the baby—an important one, too. There: do you see him? The man? Ah, no, you’ve missed him, too focused on the mother. It’s alright; many observers would make that mistake. But that man—the one shrouded in the dark fabric—he’s important, too.

He stood at the end of the bed, leaning on the very same railing. Whether it was out of fatigue or anxiousness, there was no way to tell. Too much of his back was to you. He jumped when another white coat sped into the room; the young woman’s face betrayed only annoyance. Ah, there, now you can see him: a face younger than you would’ve expected, and much gentler, at least now. Lips parted, he stared at the newest figure in the room with almost-pleading eyes, begging silently for guidance.

‘You’re so close,’ the newest man spoke. ‘Let’s try again—take a deep breath—’

She promptly ignored him; instead, she threw her head back and screamed in pain, eyes squeezing shut with the intensity of the feeling. But then, you have no idea what she’s feeling, do you? Maybe a little, if you’ve ever delivered a child. Even then, you’d still come up a bit short. It turns out, it’s something very similar to what the father—the man in the dark fabrics, as you’ve already figured out—feels. Yes, they both feel it: intense waves of joy, followed by violent spurts of anxiety. Light rises within the child—and the darkness to meet it.

You see, it’s _their_ child. A combination of them both—

Are you listening? She’s begun to push again; it’s only natural to want to watch the birth, but these words are important. For years—millennia, really—the galaxy has yearned for balance. The Jedi Order strove to restore balance, but all-too-often forgot about the counterpart of the light: the dark. The people here before you are, perhaps, the embodiments of both.

It’s a fair question to ask, why a user of the dark side of the force would want a child so desperately—and yes, he _did_ want a child desperately. He had been, in their relationship, the one to float the idea. Well, you see, much as it now pulsed in his own child, light pulsed strongly within him. His mother had felt it during her own pregnancy; a band of light, as she described it, wrapping around him, glowing and fading in time with the emotions swirling within him. The force flowed in this way within all beings.

Oh, yes: that man has done terrible things. He’s mowed down students in their sleep; struck down fathers; cut down women and children, too; destroyed families and wreaked havoc on towns that never did a thing to hurt him—or anyone else. He had never seen the good in himself—nor had most others. Children avoided him when he was young; he often ate lunch alone. His parents discussed his fate in hushed tones behind closed doors—but he knew. He knew, and it broke whatever heart he may have had.

Until he met this woman. She had, in her terribly stubborn way, insisted that there was light within him yet. A chorus of ‘It’s not too late’ and ‘It’s always been there’ echoed in his mind; he struggled to believe in whatever she saw—he still did. The shape of his future—it was solid and clear, she said. He wanted, more than anything, to believe it too.   

A shrill cry pierced the room just then, high-pitched and long: a clear objection to an inferior world. The child struggled in the arms of an attending nurse, wailing its plea to feel again the warmth of its mother. The white coat gestured to the man; two small clamps had already been placed on the last remaining material attachment between mother and child.

‘Would you—’

The man in black stepped closer, as if scared—scared of a tiny little creature, its chest no broader than one of his hands. With immeasurable tenderness, he cut the umbilical cord, and so the child was welcomed into the real world.

Is the world spinning? It is for the parents. The mother’s head had slumped back as soon as she knew her baby was healthy, taking precious few moments to collect herself and catch her breath. The pain was subsiding: the urge to hold her child, growing. The nurse had retrieved a wet cloth, wiping gently the blood and afterbirth from the newborn, who continued to cry bitterly. It wasn’t wrong, was it? Such a cruel world this was.

‘A boy,’ the white coat murmured, holding the swaddled child out to its father. The man cradled the baby into his arms as if he had always known how to hold an infant. His son fell quiet then, content to snuggle up against something warm—something intrinsically familiar. Tiny hands clenched and unclenched above the warm wrappings, fingers spreading curiously in the new world. His father gazed down at him through his eyelashes, offering up a single finger for gripping.

No words left the man’s mouth; his lips remained parted in perfect wonder as he held his child. This—proof that he could, indeed, do good.

She had been right; the light… it had always been there.


End file.
